Grundkurs i C

Background and Overview

• The language B
• Why C was invented
• Kernighan & Ritchie C (K&R C)
• ANSI C
• C99
• C11
• Language properties
• Overview of the syntax

Scalar Types

• Integral types
• Floating-point types
• Boolean values
• Characters
• Type variations, such as short/long, signed/unsigned
• Variables
• The sizeof operator
• Scopes

Operators

• Arithmetic operators
• Relational operators
• Logical operators
• Assignment expression operators
• Increment & decrement operators
• Type alias
• Type casts
• The address operator
• Printing to the console
• Reading from the console

Composite Types

• Structs
• Unions
• Arrays
• Text strings

Statements

• If statements
• While loops
• For loops
• Foreach loops
• Switch statements

Functions

• Function syntax
• Specification vs. implementation
• Function main()
• Understanding exit codes
• Command-line arguments
• Global vs. local data
• Usage of static variables and their meaning

The Pre-Processor

• Including application files
• Including system files
• Constants
• Pre-defined constants
• Function macros
• Conditional compilation
• Include guards
• Stringification
• Name concatenation
• Variadic macros
• Assertions

Understanding Pointers

• What is a pointer
• Pointer declaration syntax
• The dereferencing operator
• Starred pointers
• Pointer arithmetics
• Array access
• Why arrays and pointers are the same
• Text strings are arrays of characters
• Struct access
• Understanding the address operator
• Pointer to a function
• Indirect function calls

Dynamic Memory Blocks

• What is dynamic memory
• Using malloc() and free()
• Why calloc() is better than malloc()
• Using realloc()
• Understanding briefly the structure of the system heap
• Memory block manipulating functions
• Linked list data-types
• Binary-tree data-types
• Allocating data on the call-stack using alloca()

Machine-Level Support

• Bit-oriented operators
• Shift operators
• Bit-field structs
• Inline ASM (assembler) code

Standard Library

• Overview
• Online documentation

Working with Text String

• Understanding that string literals are read-only
• Overview of string manipulating functions in the standard library
• Character oriented functions
• String oriented functions
• Conversion functions
• Allocating memory blocks for strings
• Copying strings
• Searching strings
• Tokenization of strings

Working with Files

• Opening files
• File opening modes
• Formatted writing
• Formatted reading
• Changing the read/write position in a file
• Line-oriented reading
• Byte-oriented read/write

Working with Date & Times

• The UNIX Epoc
• Timestamps
• Using struct tm
• Getting the current time
• Formatting date and time values

Building C Applications

• Program organization
• Understanding compilation units
• Compilation steps
• Useful GCC compiler options
• Dynamic vs. static linkage
• Creating static linked library file (*.a)
• Creating dynamic linked library file (*.so)

Dealing with Errors

• Compiling for a debugger
• Debugging inside CLion
• Brief about the command-line debugger GDB
• Finding memory-leaks using Valgrind

Unit Testing

• What is unit testing
• Installing cUnit
• Writing tests
• Compiling and linking tests
• Executing tests